


The Only Gold Medal He Wanted

by JemTheKingOfSass



Series: Free Mom verse [1]
Category: Free!
Genre: Gen, Light Angst, M/M, Mother-Son Relationship, The RH is important but only background
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-29
Updated: 2018-03-29
Packaged: 2019-04-14 08:35:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14132265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JemTheKingOfSass/pseuds/JemTheKingOfSass
Summary: Rin was so tall now, like her Toraichi had been. She spotted his crimson hair, his broad shoulders, his overjoyed expression. When had he gotten so big, how had that happened? She had just been helping him cross the street, hadn’t she? She could practically still feel his sticky, jammy hand in one of hers, Gou’s in her other, because the three of them were always together.





	The Only Gold Medal He Wanted

**Author's Note:**

> I am a mother and I can't help but watch Free! through that lens. I have strong feelings and hc about Mamatsuoka's journey, of which we see very little canonically. (I have a lot of thoughts about Mama Nanase as well but that's for another day.)
> 
> Special thanks to [CaptainScience](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaptainScience/pseuds/CaptainScience) and [Sapphiresflame](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sapphiresflame) for helping me with my extreme titling woes!
> 
>  

 

For the first time in a long time, it was Miyako who walked off the train and searched for the eyes of her son. She hoped those eyes, a mirror of her own, would be as bright and as full of life as the day he first groggily opened them. He came into the world in a rush, two weeks early because that was simply how he lived; driven by an unspeakable force to do more, see more, experience more, living life with an insatiable energy that sometimes threatened to consume him. His eyes always betrayed him, at least to her. 

 

Miyako vividly recalled the day, about two decades ago, she had stepped back into her home, and his eyes had been fearful and brimming with tears. Those eyes were so full, nothing spilling over the lids that were desperately trying to hold back the dam that threatened to overflow. She never expected her own son to be the bearer of news that shattered the world she knew, the world she loved. 

 

_Someone called while you were gone and said Dad died at sea today. They said his boat was caught in the storm. Mom, is that true?_

 

Miyako scanned the crowd, looking a head above the throng of people at the bustling Tokyo train station. Rin was so tall now, like her Toraichi had been. She spotted his crimson hair, his broad shoulders, his overjoyed expression. When had he gotten so big, how had that happened? She had just been helping him cross the street, hadn’t she? She could practically still feel his sticky, jammy hand in one of hers, Gou’s in her other, because the three of them were always together. They had spent so much time together, laughing, playing, cleaning, eating, living, waiting. So much time waiting for the fourth member of their family to return from a work trip, to return from the water. Until the day there was no more reason to wait. 

 

_Mom, when is Daddy coming home?_

 

As she made eye contact with her elder child and moved towards him, Miyako’s face broke into a smile. She appreciated being reunited with any part of her brood, which had expanded over the recent years. Any time spent with her children or their partners or her grandchildren was a blessing in her eyes, as she had more than enough love to give.

 

“Mom!” Rin leaned down and threw his arms around her in a tight embrace. As he rested his chin over her shoulder, she had to stop the gasp from escaping her lips. Every time he hugged her, she was taken back to younger days when it had been the strong arms of his father wrapping around her. Tora had tilted his head exactly the same way, with his head over her shoulder due to exactly the same height disparity. 

 

“Rin, chicken, you feel thin. Are you eating enough?” Miyako could not help the motherly tone that flew out of her mouth. She sounded like her parents, how they had hounded Tora every time he had graced their house to share a meal. 

 

“Tch, Mom, I follow the team dietitian’s meal plan to the letter. I know what I’m doing, or rather, she knows what I should be doing. I promise I’m eating enough,” he chuckled. His eyes sparkled, like there was laughter contained inside them. She was overjoyed and relieved to see him looking like this. Alive. Happy. Content. 

 

“Where’s Haruka?”

 

“He needed to stay late at practice and help a few of the younger swimmers who are getting ready for their first free relay.” Rin reached over to grab the carry-on out of her hand. “You’ll see him tonight, I swear. This gives us a chance to talk and catch up.”

 

They walked out of the station and turned left, towards Rin and Haruka’s flat. Miyako looked over and up at her son, as she reached for his hand, unable to stop herself from the urge to hang on to him, just for a moment. He turned to her in surprise at the unexpected gesture, but grasped her hand in return with a tender look passing over his face. 

 

After a short walk, they arrived at his building and Rin led her up the stairs and into his home. Miyako slipped into the kitchen to begin tea preparations, while her son deposited her bag in the guest room. She opened the upper cabinet above the oven and pulled down the tea service she knew they used most frequently. It had been Haruka’s grandmother’s and it reminded her of her son-in-law which was a pleasant thought. She ran her hands over the cornflower etching on the pot. She loved Haruka with all her heart and it swelled every time she thought about how very good he was for her Rin. Haruka grounded him and lifted him up in a way she was not sure she had been able to since he was young. 

 

“Mom, go sit! I can do all that,” Rin’s voice admonished her from the doorway. “You’re my guest, you don’t have to prepare tea.”

 

“I’m not a guest, I’m your mother. I want to prepare the tea for you,” she responded firmly, shooing him away from his own kitchen. “Sit, Rin.”

 

Her son dutifully moved to the bar-height counter and perched on a stool there. Miyako hoped it was so he could still be near her while she worked. She glanced over to see his chin resting in his hand while he watched her bustling in his space.

 

“Hey Mom?” Miyako lifted her head, wondering how many times she had heard those two words in that exact tone over the years. 

 

_Hey Mom? Can I go play at Sousuke’s? I’m so bored, there’s nothing to do at home._

_Hey Mom? I’ve been thinking about living at Grandma’s for the rest of the year so I can go to Iwatobi, I really want to swim at that swim club there like Dad._

_Hey Mom? Can I come back from Australia if I hate it or will you be disappointed in me?_

_Hey Mom? Do you ever miss Dad?_

 

“What is it, chicken?”

 

“Can we talk?”

 

Miyako could not help the tremor that ran through her and planted itself heavily in her gut at that moment, motherly intuition sounding the alarm throughout her very core. “Of course, you can always talk to me about anything. I’ll listen to anything you have to say.” She poured hot water into the pot and lowered the straining ball bursting with orange blossom-infused sencha into it. She relocated the pot and two teacups onto the counter Rin was seated at, and moved to sit next to him. 

 

She watched Rin fidget with his hands, worrying his left thumb between all the fingers of his right hand. He smoothed slow circles onto his thumbnail rhythmically with his other thumb, clearly working himself up to the topic of this conversation. Toraichi had had the same nervous tic, right hand like a claw around the digit, gripping it tightly, like he could press the nail deeper into the nail bed. Miyako had not seen this anxious mannerism since her son had been an adolescent and he had come out to her, acting like he was on trial for some sort of atrocious criminal activity and she was the judge waiting to hand down his verdict. She had been horrified that talking to her about it had filled him with so much dread, and took it as an inadvertent reflection of her inadequate parenting skills. It was not until Haruka had needed to spend Golden Week in the Matsuoka house because his parents did not want him around after he had parleyed the same message to them, that she realized she was doing fine. In fact, to this day she still hated that she had to let Haruka go when that holiday was over.

 

Miyako reached over to place her hand on top of Rin’s. “Talk.”

 

“Haru says you’ll be able to tell me, that I can’t keep blaming myself. But I think I’m a little scared of the answer." Rin’s hand trembled underneath hers. The pressure inside her intensified, whatever this was could not be anything good. She knew Rin. She knew he buried things deeply within himself, letting them fester and grow and morph into something that constantly threatened to consume him. She knew he locked himself away in his own head, listening to poisonous thoughts, letting them clench around his heart and try to squeeze the life out of him. She knew.

 

_Haru listens, Mom. He lets me tell him all my too-big thoughts so I don’t have to be the only one hearing them. Plus he gives me new things to think about. Better things, you know?_

 

“You’ll tell me the truth, right Mama?” Rin looked up at her and she saw him as he was at seven years old, eyes glistening with unshed tears, determined to be as mature as possible. She gripped his large hand firmly with her much smaller one.

 

“Always Rin, always,” she assured him with no hesitation. She prided herself on how she had never lied to either of her children when they had asked her a straight question. She believed in honesty as a two-way street and she always gave them the fullest answer their ages could handle.

 

She watched him swallow his courage deeply, Adam’s apple bobbing with the effort. “Do you blame me for Dad’s death?”

 

And just like that, he shattered her heart with his words for the second time.

 

Miyako felt winded, she was so out of breath. She lurched on the stool and felt her son’s hand grab for her elbow. “Rin,” she gasped out, searching his face desperately for the joke that she must have missed, but all she saw was a raw and open hopefulness in his eyes. “Why would you ask me that?”

 

“Because...” he trailed off, like the words were physically stuck in his throat, unable to be vocalized, his momentary courage long gone. 

 

“Rin. Please.” Miyako pleaded with her overgrown child, desperate to know what had brought on that question, yet knowing she needed to provide an honest answer and she needed to provide it quickly. Buried deeply within her, gnawing at the edges of her mind, she could think of only one reason Rin would voice this query. 

 

She recalled how he had left Japan, and how he had returned home every New Year’s, each time more and more of him missing. She remembered how empty his eyes were when he had slunk back into the nest to complete his waning childhood, a shell of his boyish self. She had begged him constantly to communicate, tried to walk that line of forcing him to open up to her and giving him the necessary space to grow into himself. She knew she failed him throughout his teenage years, no one had to voice it, _she knew_. She felt the inescapable guilt every time she flipped through the photo albums that Lori had put together for her each year he was away. But no matter how shuttered he tried to present his face, Miyako could read him. She saw the pain, the guilt, the fear, the anxiety, the loneliness, the pressure, she saw it crushing him but he was never willing to talk to her. She did not know what to do so she did not do anything except keep trying. She had tried so hard and she still let him down in the worst possible way. How had she not seen in all that silent suffering that he blamed himself for his father’s death? 

 

Miyako spun on her stool so she faced her son, his eyes downcast and fixed on the counter. She lifted her hands to his face, cupping his cheeks like she had when Rin was just a wriggling infant and she had wanted to softly coo at him and gently rub noses, connecting herself to him as he had been connected to her for months. She was overwhelmed for the first time in years with the powerful longing that he was still inside her, where her body alone could shield him from anything and everything that came to torment him. Once he was born, he had to begin learning how to do it for himself, ever so slowly, until he was a man and ready to face life as it came. 

 

“Rin, look at me,” Miyako urged, tugging lightly on her son’s face. His shining eyes met hers, seeking a release, and she hoped she could ease this burden he carried by providing the truth. It was so simple. She could have offered it to him years ago had she known he needed to hear it. “I have never blamed you for even one second of any day for your father’s death.”

 

He gasped, like he had not expected an answer, much less that one. When he spoke it was a soft murmur that Miyako could barely hear. “But he gave up his dream, sacrificed everything he wanted for me.”

 

“Is that what you think? Is that what you’ve thought all these years?” Miyako felt the onslaught of pain consume her as it flowed out her eyes and threatened to close her throat, but she forced herself to keep talking. How had she not known? Why had Rin never voiced this? How much suffering could she have saved him if she had just told him this. Why had it never occurred to her to give him this message loudly and clearly. “Chicken, no. He never gave up anything. When we went to the doctor and were told I was pregnant with you, his world shifted. It _shifted_ , Rin, you became his new dream. He chose _you_ , he chose us, his family. You were his world, even before you were born, and he never wanted to be away from you. Never. You were the only gold medal he wanted.”

 

Miyako felt Rin’s tears trickle through her fingers as she clung to his cheeks, desperately trying to tactilely show him how precious he was to her. At that moment, Rin leaned forward and buried his head on her shoulder, throwing his arms around his mother. He sobbed like he had on the first anniversary of Toraichi’s death, standing at the Matsuoka tombstone, before he thought anyone could see him. She witnessed his thin shoulders quaking, and the wailing assaulted her ears as he crumpled to his knees in the dirt. As soon as he sensed her approach, he sprang up and shut his mouth and frantically rubbed the heels of his hands into his eyes. 

 

“Oh chicken,” Miyako soothed, taking her hands off his face, smoothing them over his hair, while she shushed and held him like she had when he was decades younger. Her gentle ministrations calmed her son, as he slowly regained his composure enough to lift his face off her shoulder and heave a few deep, shuddering breaths. When he looked at her, his eyes were as clear as they had been the first time he came home bubbling over with enthusiasm about the boy that was swimming with a different swim club in the same tournament as him.

 

“I love you, Mama,” Rin mumbled as he wiped his sleeve over his face. 

 

“I love you, Rin. I’ve loved you every moment since I found out you were going to be mine.” Miyako did not bother clearing her face, as she had no qualms about her son seeing the proof of her adoration for him until the tears dried on their own. Even then, the salty tracks would stay on her skin for the remainder of the evening. She knew the tracks on her heart, the ones that no one could see, the ones she felt thrumming with life every time she thought of her children, were forever etched into her soul.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

>  I imagine Miyako would be heart-broken if she eventually found out some of the thoughts and guilt that Rin has been harboring all this time. Rin, talk to your mama, she loves you and supports you _no matter what_.


End file.
